


Stumbling

by olivemartini



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Peter's going to save the day, Spider-man: Far From Home - Freeform, Spideychelle, based off the trailer, idk - Freeform, insecure Michelle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-14 02:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17499905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: "Can you believe it?"  Ned is way too happy, almost as giddy as he had been when he found out that Peter was spiderman.  "We're in London!"They were in London.  For two days, and then off to Paris, and then down to Italy."Yeah, cheer up, Parker."  Flash bobbed between them.  Peter had to readjust the suitcases (he had three.  His, and Suzy's, because she kept dropping it and spilling more clothes, and MJ, because he had sort of just wanted to do something nice and she was pretty sure that it was hard for her to carry, considering that she had stuffed the bottom full of books.) to make space for him, and Flash manages to knock into them anyways.  "We're in Europe.  What can go wrong?"Later, he really wishes he hadn't said that, but at the time, Peter had only laughed, because really, Flash was right.He was with his friends.  He was in Europe.  He was carrying three suitcases in front of MJ, which had to be impressive.  The suit was back at home, and he wasn't going to keep someone from being mugged, unless they looked really upset about it.a.k.aMy take on FFH, with plenty of Spideychelle thrown in the mix





	1. Chapter 1

He misses the bus, because of course he does.

He hadn't meant to. There had been a time where he thought that being Spiderman was the most important part of his life, where he would stay up all hours of the night out patrolling the streets and empty alleys looking for a crime that just wasn't happening, skipping homework and study nights and home made meals from Aunt May, cancelling on Ned and screwing up things with Liz and almost losing the championship for the academic challenge team, but now he knows better.  Now he knows that what he does in the suit isn't nearly as important as what happens outside of it- that it's important that he does his homework and starts applying for scholarships, important that he tells May exactly what happened on his nights out swinging through the skies, important that he shows up at Ned's house and remembers MJ's birthday even though she hates celebrating it.

So he's trying, to be normal.  To be a kid.  More importantly, he really, really wants to go to Europe with all his friends even though there was a chance that he and Ned might have to share a room with Flash, so he leaves his suit in the closet and wakes up two hours earlier than he needs to and kisses Aunt May on the cheek on his way out the door even though lately he'd realized that he'd stopped hugging her good bye, passport in hand- and then he watched the lady get mugged.

"Hey!"  He doesn't look like Spiderman.  He looks like a kid, easy target, something that this person could chew up and spit out without even breaking a sweat, and he can't use his webs, because that would give it away, and he can't climb the walls or jump super high, which means that he's going to have to fight this guy the old fashioned way.  Peter hates that.  He's terrible at the old fashion way.  "I don't want to hurt you."

The guy laughs.  Peter doesn't blame him. He knows he looks ridiculous, this slightly scrawny seventeen year old standing with his fists held out in front of him, wearing a shirt that has no less than three different science puns on it.  

"You want it?"  He's laughing at him.  Peter doesn't like to be laughed at, not now, not today, not when he wanted so desperately for everything to go right.  And he doesn't want to waste anymore time, not when the woman who he had stolen the purse from was still cowering against the brick wall with her expensive looking heels settled right in the middle of a puddle of vomit, but he doesn't want to do  _this,_ either.  "Come on, kid."  He hates being called kid, too.  That's what Happy calls him, and Mr. Stark, whenever they think that a job is too big or that he is too small.  "Just get out of here."

 _Mugger with a conscience,_ he thinks, and he finds that funny, wants to write that in his daily update to Happy, but that's the last coherent thought, because after that there is only him and the guy with the purse- Peter lunging forward, the guy's laugh choking to a grunt when his fist lands into his stomach, the purse spilling its contents all over the sidewalk and that guy, bending over and wheezing and Peter apologizing because he had panicked, it had been adrenaline, he didn't mean to hit him that hard,  _honest_ \- and then there's a flash of metal flying towards him, the burst of white hot pain spreading over his side, and Peter manages to hold the guy still for about three seconds before he sees the blood and reels backward.

( _He's tried to work on this, the panic, the instinct to protect himself.  Survival skills aren't as important when you've got a regeneration gene, and Peter had tried to peel it out of his DNA- had stood pinned to the wall as Ned halfheartedly chucked golf balls at him, stuck his hand into pots of hot water, threw himself off buildings- but he can't.  No powers can override seventeen years of teaching yourself how to survive._ )

Someone is screaming.  The woman, still cowering, a bruise starting to cover her face from chin to cheekbone, and Peter reaches out for her, mouth shaping a question, a condolence, but then she falls back and scrabbles on the pavement away from him, her screams reaching a pitch that reverberates around in his brain, and he realizes that it's him she's afraid.  He's still standing there with his hand outstretched when she snatches up the purse and hobbles off towards the bus station, one heel still stuck in that pile of vomit.

Seems like superheros are only super when they're hiding behind the suit.

 

 

 

 The bus is already gone when he gets to the school.

He hadn't expected it to be there.  Peter was almost relieved that it wasn't, considering that his shirt was torn and bloody and there was no stab wound left to give a real explanation for it, and he didn't want to hear what Flash had to say about him being late, even though it was to stop a mugging.  There was no Aunt May, either, not like he had expected, just Happy, leaning against the car and playing on his phone, looking entirely angry about having to be there.

"Hey kid."  Happy's grown more tolerant of him ever since Peter left Liz's dad tied up in the middle of that burning beach, and even more so since he started dating Aunt May.  "Heard you needed a ride?"

Peter's so relieved to see him that he doesn't even question it.  Last year, he had spent so long trying to prove that he could do everything on his own that he never stopped to appreciate the uniqueness of still being a kid, where you still have that option to step back and let the adults take care of you.  Before, he had never noticed how good it felt when there was someone to make all the calls for you, who was able to shoulder all the blame.  Now, letting other people take the wheel is his favorite thing, so he doesn't argue when Happy was there instead of Mr. Stark or Aunt May, not when he takes the suitcase even though Peter would rather keep it close, not when they keep driving past the public parking spaces and straight to the back of the air port, and not even when Happy leads him into one of Stark's private airplanes, keeping a hand square in the middle of his shoulders the whole time, like Peter might be under attack at any moment.

Happy hadn't said a word since he got in the car, just asked if Peter was alright and eyed his bloodied shirt when he promised that he wasn't hurt, and then rolled the divider up.  Now, on the plane, he didn't seem more likely to speak, just walks over to the mini fridge and pulls out a beer that Peter is pretty sure cost more than his food budget for the entire week.

"No way," Happy says when he sees Peter looking, misinterpreting the look on his face.  "You get thirsty, you can have the apple juice."

There really was apple juice.  Juice, and kool aid packs, and lunchables, because Tony cares about him, but only in a reluctant, grudging, kind of way, like he's going out of his way to make Peter remember that he was only just a kid.

"No."  Peter doesn't drink.  Had tried, once, because Ned had gotten really into superheroes when he found out that Peter had powers, and was reading an autobiography on Steve Rogers when he figured out that his supersoldier metabolism doesn't let him get drunk.  It was one of a long line of experiments that Ned was choreographing, including an upcoming one where he would see how many chicken nuggest he could eat in a row.  "I've just never seen you drink before."

Happy raised an eyebrow at him.  "Well, normally, I'm on the job, aren't I?  But today I'm not.  Today," He spins around in his chair, and Peter copies him, because he didn't know airplanes seat could do that.  He makes it three spins before Happy reaches out and makes him stop.  "was my day off, and now I'm chaperoning you to Europe as a favor to your aunt, and you're just going to be quiet."

Which is okay.  Peter can do quiet.  Except, not really.

"Oh."  Happy doesn't look angry, exactly, but he doesn't look pleased.  "Sorry?"

"Yeah, sorry." Happy laughs, pulls out his phone, and then stares at Peter over the screen in a way that makes him squirm.  "You know, one day, you won't be able to call."

Peter pulls back, keeps himself still with effort.  He feels his stomach drop, and he's not sure if it's because of the flight or because he always gets upset when someone is mad at him. 

"I didn't mean," He swallows, hard.  It's fun to fly, but also terrible- the machinery is loud and the lights are bright and some part of Peter knows with a vicious resentment that it does not belong in the sky.  He's never really able to calm down until he makes it back to solid ground.  "I didn't mean to bother you on your day off."

"That's not," Happy makes a sound in his throat, like a groan or a growl, and then leans forward, elbows on his knees.  "I just mean that some day, Tony isn't going to be able save you.  He won't be there.  Won't reach the phone, or he'll be off saving the world in a big way while you deal with your little ways, and then what?  You won't even know what to do."

Peter just stares at him.

"I mean, imagine.  You're all alone.  Your friends are in trouble.  You've got to save them."  Happy spreads his hands out in front of him, proud, like he was a teacher announcing that they could solve a complicated equation for bonus points and not making Peter's stomach try to crawl it's way out his throat.  "What are you going to do then?"

"I don't know."  He doesn't know.  He'd done it before- empire state building, the airplane, the bits of pre snap Thanos fighting that are still a little fuzzy in his head- but he's still left with the blow of that the truth of it is that he doesn't know  He hadn't known  _then,_ he' been running blind, making last second decisions, relying on Karen more than his own skill to know what was or was not beyond his limits.  "I don't," He thinks of the woman from this morning, how terrified she was, how hard he had hit that man without meaning to, and then his own blood pouring hot and sticky over his hands.  "I don't know."

Happy smiled, like he had reached some sort of interesting conclusion and not just terrified Peter to the core.  "See?"  He takes another drink of the beer, and then throws an apple juice at him.  "That's what you've got to figure out."

Peter really hopes that he and aunt May break up soon.

 

 

 

 

 By the time the rest of the class get there, he's been waiting at the gate for a full forty minutes.

"Peter!"  Mr. Harrington ducks under one of the security ropes, ignoring the yells of the TSA agent behind him, and grabs him by the shoulders.  There's a second where Peter thinks he's going to be sent back home, but then he's being pulled into a bone crushing hug that makes his newly healed skin stretch in a way that was decidedly unpleasant.  "You made it!  We were so worried- you're okay, aren't you?"

He seemed to just remember _why_ Peter was late and pulled back, holding himself away with some restraint.  "I'm alright."  Peter could see the rest of the class filing through- Flash leading the group and already shouting at him ( _and what a way to ring in the continents, strangers everywhere being introduced to him as Penis Parker_ ), Ned with his travel guides, and MJ trailing behind, biting her nails in a way that she does whenever she's really nervous.  "Just a little sore."

"How'd you even get here?"  There's not very much bite to Flash's words, not anymore.  Even when he makes fun of Peter it's always half hearted, like he's just going through the motions and can't figure out why it wasn't as fun as it used to be.  Peter can't really get bothered by it that much, either- hard to be bothered by Flash's taunts when you've done the things that he has.  "Though you'd be stuck back home for sure."

Peter rolls his eyes, hefts the suitcase up just so he has something to hang onto.  "Mr. Stark flew me out."  It shuts him up, and Peter feels bad about it, briefly, when the others get close enough within ear shot to hear it.  "He had a flight coming out this way anyways, and he let me tag along."

Which was a lie, but only Ned would know that, and at the very least, it shuts Flash up.

"He must really like you, huh?" MJ was at his shoulder.  Peter hadn't even noticed her coming up behind him.  "Letting you fly in his private jet."

"Yeah," Peter never knows what to say when people question him about Mr. Stark, always afraid he was going to cross that line from being excited to bragging and oversharing.    
"Well."

MJ bumped her shoulder against his and rolls her eyes.  "Nice of you to tell me you were ditching."  She doesn't sound angry at him, not the way she was the one time he accidently showed up late to decathalon this year, but she does sound worried, like her voice was puled too tight.  "Next time let me ride with you, alright?"

There's a brief image in his head of her watching him sink his fist into that guy's stomach, but Peter pushes it away, because that wasn't what he was talking about. "Are you alright?  You seem a little upset."  He rocks back on his heels, wishes that Ned was there and starts looking for him.  Talking with Michelle always goes better when he isn't the only one.  "Don't like flying?"

Normally, she would bristle at any suggestion that she was afraid of something, or that she might need help. He's pretty sure that MJ spent most of her life walking an uphill battle and doesn't know what to go when the road gets easy.  This time, though, her shoulders just slump, and Peter doesn't miss the way her breath hitches, but she doesn't answer, just shakes her head.

"You're alright, aren't you?  Mr. Harrington said that you stopped a mugger."  Her hand fluttered out to touch a spot low on his jacket, and Peter looks down to see the rust red mark that he hadn't noticed before.  He doesn't even know if it was from today's fight or another one.  "That you got hurt."

"It was nothing."  Lies.  He said that he wanted to stop lying, but it's not like he could admit that he got stabbed.  "I'm fine."

"But you did, didn't you?"  She's staring at him.  Being the center of her concentration was a new thing for him, and one he doesn't always like- she was honestly the smartest person that she had ever met, and notices ten times more than everyone else in his life.  Not exactly a good thing for someone with such a big thing to hide.  "Stop a mugging."

"It wasn't," He rocks back on his heels, because he can't tell her the truth, but suddenly, he really, really wants her to think that he's some sort of hero, even if he can't be Spiderman.  "I just got her purse back."  He says, and the words come out in one breath, weak, like he was admitting to something terrible instead of something he should be proud of, and over her shoulder, he can see Ned rolling his eyes.  "The guy didn't seem to know what he was doing.  It wasn't- It wasn't anything special."

"Yeah," She says, and then reaches out to tug on his jacket in a way that somehow hides the blood stain.  "It was."

 

 

 

 

He wants to keep talking to her, but then one of her friends is at her arm, and Ned is at Peter's side talking in too loud of a voice about the interview that Spiderman had done on Ellen, and Suzy's suitcase broke and spilled out all over the parking lot, meaning that Peter had to go into one of the gas stations and fumble through finding duct tape in order to get it closed again, and when they got to the bus, there wasn't enough seats for everyone but they all had to be  _sitting,_ according to school guidelines, so Flash had to sit on his lap.

It's not the best start, but it was hard to be mad about it when they were in  _Europe,_ and even Flash seemed to have forgotten to be mean to him now, rapping Peter on the shoulder every time that he saw something out the window worth looking at and sharing his travel gummy worms with him and Ned, and by the time they pulled up at the hotel, Peter didn't even care about the mugging anymore.  

"Can you believe it?"  Ned is way too happy, almost as giddy as he had been when he found out that Peter was spiderman.  "We're in London!"

They were in London.  For two days, and then off to Paris, and then down to Italy.  

"Yeah, cheer up, Parker."  Flash bobbed between them.  Peter had to readjust the suitcases ( _he had three.  His, and Suzy's, because she kept dropping it and spilling more clothes, and MJ, because he had sort of just wanted to do something nice and she was pretty sure that it was hard for her to carry, considering that she had stuffed the bottom full of books._ ) to make space for him, and Flash manages to knock into them anyways.  "We're in Europe.  What can go wrong?"

Later, he really wishes he hadn't said that, but at the time, Peter had only laughed, because really, Flash was right.

He was with his friends.  He was in Europe.  He was carrying three suitcases in front of MJ, which had to be impressive.  The suit was back at home, and he wasn't going to keep someone from being mugged, unless they looked really upset about it.

Everything was going to be fine.

 


	2. Chapter 2

London is fun.

They saw Big Ben, and took a tour of Buckingham Palace.  They went on the London Eye, which was especially fun because Flash was apparently afraid of heights, and rode one of those double decker buses around the city for a total of three hours because Mr. Harrington had read the map wrong, and had all taken pictures at Platform 9 and 3/4.  Mr. Harrington kept pointing out historic buildings for them to stare out, and MJ kept up a running commentary for the decathlon team about the historic sites of the city, only falling quiet when they stood in the middle of St. Paul's Cathedral.

"What?"  Flash said, peering around the group so that he could snap at her.  "Nothing to add?"

"No."  She was trailing her hands over the back of the pews, looking up at the domed ceiling above their heads.  "It doesn't really need my help, does it?"

It's fun.  And he's happy, happy to be hear with Ned and still perfectly willing to carry everyone's suitcases like a human pack mule, and even more happy about the fact that MJ once fell asleep with her head on his shoulder when they were on the bus ( _she doesn't sleep well in new places_ ), and for the first time in his life, he really doesn't want to be Spiderman.  Happy even when he has to share a room with both Ned  _and_ Flash, happy when a girl comes and asks for his number even though Flash makes fun of him for it all evening, happy, for the first time, that he had left the suit at home.

Except.

Without the suit there is no Karen.  Without the suit there is no way to slip it on and ask for black out mode, which dulls the lights and blocks the sounds and there is nothing but him and her voice in his ears counting along to the ragged rhythm of his breathing, nothing to stop the anxiety from crawling up his arms and the pounding headache in his head that comes from the constant lights shining in his eyes, ten times brighter for him than it is for everyone else, the crowd ten times louder, the sound of Ned's breathing like a thunderstorm rolling in his ears.

( _It makes him wish for anything, even that crappy homemade suit with the tinted goggles that blocked out some of the light.  He sneaks into a store and buys a pair of cheap sunglasses, locks himself in the bathroom and puts in ear plugs and puts on the sunglasses and tells everyone that he had gotten food poisoning when they ask what had took him so long, which really only resulted in Mr. Harrington carrying around an emergency bottle of Pepto Bismol in his backpack for him, but hey.  At least he tried._ )

"Are you alright?"  MJ's voice makes him jump.  They were standing in the middle of the hotel, waiting for Mr. Harrington to come back with instructions.  It would be their last night in London- one more night in the hotel and then off to Paris in the morning by plane, bright and early.  "You look..."  She looks like the way she had back at the plane when she pointed out the bloodstain.  She had caught him scrubbing at in the hotel sink last night and taken it from him with a sigh, meeting his eyes in the mirror in a way that made him think she was angry.  "Upset."

Upset is a kind word.  He looks jumpy, and agitated, and like someone that the security guards should be considering throwing back out onto the street.  He was trying to be calm, but couldn't, not when he was being blasted with ten different threads of conversation at once and he could hear Mr. Harrington from all the way across the room, and he could smell her perfume mixing with the acrid air from outside and the sick sweetness of the air freshner someone had sprayed all over the couch three hours ago, and one of the light bulbs was flickering, just a bit, dipping in its brightness every half second, and it was sending his head reeling.

"I'm fine."  He shook his head, trying to clear it, but it only made a lump grow in his throat, and for a moment, he really thought he was going to start crying, right here in front of her.  "I'm fine.  Just-,"

MJ doesn't look like she believes him.  She stares at him, and he remembers all the other times he caught her watching, all of them when he didn't want her to be.  "You want to take a walk?"

"What, now?"  She's got her hand on his arm and Peter stares at it, unsure why it's there, and then back at her.  She snatches it back.

"In a bit.  When we're all upstairs."  She rolls her eyes at him and bumps her shoulder into his, and Peter manages to snap back into his skin a little bit.  "Mr. Harrington won't notice."

Peter wants to say no.  Knows that he should say no, considering how much trouble he got in the last time he disappeared on a school trip, but doesn't, because the other alternative was staying in this hotel room with the constantly creaking floor boards and the dripping sinks and Flash's grating voice, and he honestly doesn't think he could take it.

"Yeah."  Mr. Harrington would be so disappointed.  "Yeah, I'll meet you in the hall."

 

 

 

Ned doesn't question it when he leaves, because he had walked in on Peter wearing the sunglasses in the dark and knows that this is hard for him, and no one in the hall even looks twice.  MJ is already there when he makes it into the lobby, and she looks surprised to see him, like she thought that he might chicken out.

"So," He says, acutely aware how useless his arms feel when they swing at his sides and fists his hands in the fabric of his shirt instead.  "Where are we going?"

MJ doesn't answer, just walks, and he has to reach out an arm to yank her out of the way of a impending bicycler.

"The Thames River.  I want to walk along it."  He falls into step beside her and she keeps talking, like she thought he might need convincing.  "It's on my bucket list."

"Yeah?"  It's not that long of a walk, and personally, he doesn't find it that impressive of a river, once it's looming up in their view.  "What else is on your bucket list?"

"Things," She says, infuriatingly vague as always, and Peter scowls at her.  It just makes her laugh, and she darts away from him over to the railing, leaning so far over that he thinks she might be trying to find the exact position before she makes herself fall.  It would be an MJ thing to do, testing the limits like that.  "People to meet.  Places to see."  She turns back to him, her back pressed to the railing, and even though it had started to rain, she was making no move to walk towards the overhand that others had been gathering.   "Things to do."

Peter wants to have something witty to say back, but doesn't.  He didn't have anything to say at all, so he just stays quiet, joining her at the railing. For half a moment, he wishes that he had brought the suit- bridges were always fun to swing under, his feet skimming over the water.  

"What do you want to do?"  The rain was making her hair wet, and it was losing its curl, falling flat around her face.  Some of it caught in her eyelashes, rolled down her cheeks.  

"What?"  

"What do you want to do?  Like, in life?  I don't know."  It strikes him, suddenly, how they are probably one of each other's closest friends and he doesn't know.  Barely knows any of the important stuff, but he knows a lot of little things- her birthday, that her favorite cake is red velvet with buttercream icing, that her favorite book is the Bell Jar, even that she once broke her arm when she was seven.  "I should know, but I don't."

"I don't know either.  I think," She tips back over the railing again and pounds the heel of her palm against the metal.  "I thought about writing.  Like, journalism, once.  And social work.  Just something good, you know?  I just want to make a difference.  I just want to make," She stretches out her hand and catches the rain in her palms.  "There's so many bad things in the world.  And no one's paying attention.  I just want to make people  _listen_ for once."

It's a heavy statement, and she seems to realize it, backpedaling as she talks.

"What about you?"  The crowd was the lightest that Peter had seen all day, what with everyone clearing out from the rain.  "What do you want to do?"

There's something in her face that makes him think that this is a test.  Like if he says something boring, or ordinary, she might just walk away.

"I've got no clue."  He laughs, because that covers up what he wants to say.  He wants to say  _I used to want to be an Avenger but then I felt the life drain out of me with no way to hold onto it and now I'm not so sure._ Wants to say  _It's hard to figure out what career you can have when you spend your nights swinging through the city looking for muggers to fight and robberies to stop._ Wants to admit that he stopped planning for a normal life the day he figured out that he could put his fist through a cement wall.  "Is that okay, not to know?"

"Yeah"  She turns back to look over the water, drinking in the sight of it with the same intensity as she does everyone else.  "You don't have to have all the answers, Peter."

 

 

 

 

 He's tired in the morning, but he's also better, without the pounding migraine building in his eyes, and somehow, his skin seems to fit a little better, his shoulders aren't so tense.

Mr. Harrington didn't notice that they were gone.  Apparently, he'd been too busy tracking down Flash and Susan and some of the others to bother looking for two of the better behaved kids on the trip.

"They went out clubbing.  Should have heard them come in last night."  Ned seemed delighted by the whole thing, both the fact that Flash was in trouble and the idea that he would get to hear about "clubbing" on the air plane ride over to Paris.  "Mr. Harrington didn't seem to know what to do."

It doesn't surprise Peter.  He doesn't think he'd ever heard Mr. Harrington yell before.

"But what did you do last night?  You got in late."  Peter catches MJ's eyes in the back of the room, and she smiles before turning back to her book.  "And you were soaking went."

"Nothing."  For some reason, he doesn't want to admit it, that he had gone on a walk with Michelle because she wanted to check something off her bucket list.  "Just out for a walk."

 

 

 

 

He's only on the plane for five minutes before he comes to the conclusion that he likes riding on Mr. Stark's plane a lot better, and then feels like an ass for thinking it.

It's just that everyone was so loud, and the seats were so small, and no one seemed able to work the overhead compartments.  He was in the middle seat with Ned taking over the arm rest, entertaining the idea of calling Mr. Stark for a ride again, but then Michelle appears in front of him, having abandoned her seat beside Suzy.

( _Susan was on the academic challenge team, but just barely, and only because they needed another person.  She never plays, and no one likes to have her on their team during practice, but she's nice enough.  Pretty, and a good actress, but not so good at memorizing useless facts about science.  She and Michelle had struck up a semi surprising friendship, with Susan begging her to let her give her a make over and Michelle defending her against everyone with a ferocity that Peter normally attributes to pitbulls, but he supposes that an hour trapped beside her on a plane might be a bit much._ )

"Can I sit by you?"  She's calm when she says it, but there's a flicker of doubt on her face, like she's fully expecting him to send her away.  

"Yeah."  He's trapped in the middle seat beside Ned, who had fallen asleep the moment he sat down, and Michelle gave them both an exasperated look before squeezing her way over to the window seat.  She settles down like the seat might shock her, and Peter watches, wondering if he was allowed to ask what was wrong.  "You okay?"

"Yep."  There's a jerk from the ground beneath them, and one of the flight attendants take over the microphone, informing them of the safety measures in case of a plane crash, all of which are useless.  "I just," She squeezes her eyes shut as the run way comes into view and then opens them again.  "Can we close the window?"

He tells her that he doesn't mind, and she nods, just a jerk of the head.  Peter stares at her for another minute before reaching across her and closing the window for her.

"You are really afraid of flying, aren't you?"  She pries her eyes open again ( _she had shut the during the initial lift off_ ) and glared at him.  "I mean," He doesn't know what he means. "It's not a bad thing, or anything, I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

She relaxes a bit, melts into the seat.  "I don't like flying.  Don't like heights.  Or being in the air."

"But,"  _But I watched you lean over the side of the bridge yesterday._ "You were fine in the London Eye."

"You wanted me to freak out like Flash?"  Flash had freaked out.  It was mildly pathetic.  Peter had actually felt sorry for him.  "I'm fine with those types of things."  She loosens her grip on the armrests, cautiously, like she was expecting them to start plummeting through the sky the moment she let go and was surprised when nothing happened.  "Just planes.  If we crash,"

She trails off, and Peter picks up the conversation, because when they're talking at least she doesn't look so scared.  "You know, the chances of being in a plane crash are-,"

"That's not," She says, teeth gritted, "Really the statistic I'm worried about."

"Right."  He knows all the statistics.  He'd been obsessed with airplanes when he was younger.  Used to think he was going to build them.  "Sorry."

She opens her mouth to say something ( _maybe an apology, maybe to call him stupid again_ ), but then the plane hits a vicious sort of turbulence and her hands go scrambling for something to hang onto again.  It's mostly instinct that has him holding out his hand for her to take, and she holds onto for a full ten seconds ( _during which her nails leave impressive indents in his palms, she really is scared_ ) before letting go again, fast enough that he couldn't tell if it was him or the plane she was more afraid of.

"Sorry," She blurts it out, eyes darting to the seat in front of her instead of him.  "I didn't-,"

"It's okay."  She's still not looking at him.  Doesn't look at him for the rest of the flight, not until he reaches around her and eases the window open again as they touch down, saying that she should look, just once, even if it's scary.  That sometimes things are better, even when they're scary.

"Jesus," Flash says, his voice floating from the crack between the seats, and he reaches over to swat at Peter's cheek.  "That was sappy, Parker."

It takes a lot of effort to remind himself not to hit him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol so I wrote this before end game and before the latest trailer for this movie came out, so we're going to switch over to pretending I didn't act like Tony was alive in the first two chapters, and we're going to pretend like in this version of the story the avengers managed to turn back the clock, not just pop everyone back into exsistence five years down the road. So this is like, a year after Infinity War

The girls really like Paris.

Flash isn't impressed.

And Peter?

He's just trying to keep it together.

"Dude"  Ned waits a total of three hours before he corners him, rounding in on him when Peter sneaks off to the bathroom for the third time that hour.  "What's wrong with you?"  He's got that look in his face, that look he got when Peter told him about what had happened and what the world had forgot- about Thanos and the snap, the red dirt of Titan, about dissolving.  It was supposed to be a secret, but someone had leaked one of SHIELD's secure files and the world found out anyways.  

( _Peter has a sneaking suspicion that it was Captain America.  He's more revolutionary than patriot, less taking the rules into his own hands and more breaking them in two.  Breaking the world in the name of doing what's right.  It might have been justice, but Peter can't help but think that it wasn't very kind._ )

"Nothing."  Not nothing.  His head was pounding, and there was a scratching right underneath the skin that made him want to scrape his skin off just to get to it.  It's not an unfamiliar sensation, one that rises up in every new place ever since he got his powers, the spikes of danger that always happen in unfamiliar territory, but normally it's easier to ignore. This time, more of a throbbing than anything else, a second pulse beating in time with his own, screaming out that something was wrong, that they weren't safe.  He has to bend his forehead against the cool stone of the wall to get his breathing to settle.  "Nothing, Ned, I swear."

Not that his promises mean much these days, when he keeps breaking them.

"Are you sure?  It's not," He lowers his voice but it still echoes around the room.  "There's not any bad guys, are there?"

"No."  Peter has to grind the words out from behind his teeth.  "It's just, like, it doesn't turn off."  He knows that he's being mean, his sentences clipped and his words tight, but he just wants to be left alone.  "It doesn't just warn me about the big things, it's, like, the pickpocket a block over."

Ned blinks at him.  "There's a pick pocket a block from here?  Is he going to steal something?"

Peter wants to shake him, just a bit.  Wants to tell him that he isn't a mind reader, but doesn't.  "It's Paris, Ned," He says instead, heaving himself off of the wall and back into the light, over to where their group was, where Michelle was already staring at him, like she had been counting the time he had been gone and kept expecting him never to come back.  "There are pick pockets everywhere."

 

 

 

 They're in the Louvre, which Peter likes better, because everyone is quiet and the colors not on the paintings aren't too bright and there are no crowds pressing in on him.  Also, because he was getting to see the Mona LIsa and Flash was too far away for him to notice Peter and MJ was right beside him, looking at the Mona Lisa like she wanted to see it.

"Is this on your bucket list, too?"  Peter waves his hand around the room in a sort of all encompassing gesture, and then regretted it, because his voice was too loud and now Michelle was staring at him with an eyebrow raised, like there had been some sort of spell between the two of them and he had just shattered it.

"No," She says, and walks, hesitating just half a second to look behind her to see if he was coming.  It was fast enough that pre-Spiderman Peter wouldn't have noticed it, but he does- the flicker in her face when she looks at him, the way her shoulders slump and straighten, her fist tightening as she forces her steps faster than she would have done otherwise.  He doesn't mean to see these things, but he does.  He sees everything.  When he falls into step beside her, she smiles.  "Are you still sick?"

He doesn't remember the lie, or the pepto bismal in Mr. Harrington's backpack.

"Your stomach."  She's looking at him like she knew he was lying.  "It still hurt?"

"Oh," He shrugs his shoulders, tries to arrange his face in a way that made it seem like he actually knew what painting he was looking at.  "No, it's fine."

"You keep leaving," She adds, and leans in as far as the security rope would let her before falling back beside him.  "Disappearing like you used to."

Used to.  Like when he quit band, and robotics, and failed a test for the first time in his life.  Like when he left Liz alone at homecoming and all the other girls called him "Penis Parker" for a week even though it was normally just Flash and even MJ looked a little disappointed.  Like when he let the scholar challenge team down, and when he didn't come back in DC.

"I'm not," He says, which is a lie, "disappearing."

She stares at him, lifts an eyebrow again, and he squirms.

"I'm not anymore."  It doesn't feel much better.  "I'm not disappearing again."

( _It is, of course, a lie.  He knows it is a lie, every time he makes that promise, to her or to Ned or to Aunt May or himself.  He hadn't known, not until he felt himself fall apart in Mr. Stark's arms, not until he learned what it's like to have to say good bye when every part of your body is screaming at you to stay.  Peter thought he would have learned better by now, not to make promises he can't keep._ )

 

 

Someone from New York ( _some alumni, some rich person, anonymous donor, a.k.a, Mr. Stark_ ) had made a giant donation for the kids going on the trip, enough to buy them all dinner in a fancy restaurant and go see Hamilton ( _and yes, they made it all the way to Paris to catch a Broadway show, go figure_ ), and Peter still didn't know how to tie a tie.

"Dude."  Flash was sitting on the bed that was supposed to be Ned's, throwing a stress ball into the air again and again.  Peter was pretty sure that Flash had a serious problem with anxiety that he doesn't like to tell people about, and that being this far away from home wasn't helping, which might explain the temporary truce.  "Hasn't your dad ever taught you how to tie a tie?"

Peter flinches, a bit.  It's not so much a flinch as it is a visceral reaction to the utter  _absence_ of his need to flinch, where he reacts the way he knows that he should react, the way he is expected to act.  He knows it had always worried Aunt May growing up, how he never really seemed upset about the death of his parents, but he didn't know how to tell her that he couldn't miss what he never had, that whatever hole that their death had left had been filled up by her and Uncle Ben.

If he flinches -if he let's his hands drop and his shoulders hunch a bit and he meets Flash's eyes in the mirror with something a bit closer to hate than normal- then it is for Uncle Ben, not for the father that he never got to know.

"Oh."  It's a tangible sort of silence, one that Peter wants to scoop up in his hands and toss out the window.  "Sorry.  I didn't," He couldn't say he didn't know, really, because he had heard Peter call May his aunt.  "I didn't think."

For a moment, Peter entertains getting angry.  Thinks about what might happen if he took Flash by the arm and threw him into the wall.  Wondered what punishment Mr. Harrington would give if he broke the entire dresser like it was a stick.

"God, Flash," He says, and it's a little wry, and a little angry, but mostly forgiving, because whatever resentment he might have held had melted underneath the horror when he realized what he had been considering doing.  "Do you ever?"

"I can do it,"

"No,"

"Just let me-,"

There's a bit of a squabble where Peter starts out just swatting at him and Flash acted with the assurance of someone who knew that he was the stronger one, his hands reaching out to grab at him, and Peter is sort of angry but mostly just exasperated, so it's a surprise to both of them when he hits Flash in the chest and knocks him back on the bed, where he gives one pained  _oof_ of surprise and then rolls down to the floor.

"Sorry," Peter says, reaching out to help him up, and then retracts his hand.  "Sorry."

"It's okay.  Just," Flash still looks sorry, and Peter knows that he's going to pay for this later, but for the most part, Flash is just staring at him like he can't quite figure out how this happened.  "Get Mr. Harrington to help you with it before you leave, alright?  You look ridiculous."

 

 

 

 

It's supposed to be a nice night, and it is, mostly, even though Flash is the only one who knows what the dishes at the resteraunt are and Mr. Harrington gets them turned around on the way to the show, but Peter still has fun.  It's hard not to have fun, with the group they're with- Flash buys them a plate of snails to try and Ned chokes on his, and MJ pushes Flash out of the way when they get to the show so she could sit beside Peter, and no one laughs at his tie even when it comes undone and Mr. Harrington has to do it back up in front of them.  

"MJ?"  She had snuck back into the theater when it was empty.  Mr. Harrington had misread the time tables on the buses, which meant they had to wait a full half hour before the next one, and she had told Peter to come get her when it was time to leave so she didn't get left behind.  "MJ, the bus is here."

She's at the front row, her hands resting on the polished floor of the stage.

"I always wanted to be an actress."  Her hand slides over it and he tracks the motion, eyes catching on the gleam of her nail polish before moving back to her face, suddenly a lot less concerned about the bus.  "When I was younger."

Peter stays quiet.  She didn't seem to be inviting a response.

"I was too shy, though.  I auditioned for the school play back in elementary school and couldn't get a word out."  She tilts her head back so she can stare up at the painted ceiling.  "We were doing the wizard of Oz.  I wanted to be a Munchkin."

Peter laughs, and is surprised to find that he isn't nervous around her.  He's been nervous around her for months.

"You would have been a good one," And then, before he can lose the nerve, "You look really pretty tonight."

"Therefore I have value?"  She's got one eyebrow raised, that flat stare on her face, the one she used every time Flash said something mean or stupid, and Peter stammers, and then, "I'm kidding."  The smile on her face is soft.  "You look pretty, too."

He doesn't know what to say to that.  No one had called him pretty before, but he's pretty sure he stammers out something, hopefully a thank you, and then she was brushing past him, her shoulder knocking into his on the way out to the bus, and he had just convinced himself that this was the moment when his life was going to start looking up, which is right around the time Nick Fury shows up in his room and shoots a tranquilizer dart at his best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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